


Cuts Deep

by sophinisba



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Drabble Sequence, F/F, Five Year Gap, Injury, Interspecies Relationship(s), Past Abuse, Tattoos, Team as Family, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-10-26 11:21:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20741372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophinisba/pseuds/sophinisba
Summary: Natasha’s lost everything before. She thinks she can start over if she has her family with her.





	Cuts Deep

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LearnedFoot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LearnedFoot/gifts).

> Happy Marvel Femslash, LearnedFoot! I loved your prompts and really enjoyed writing this!

There’s something perverse about the way the alien girl says _my father_, but Natasha’s not one to throw stones.

She once called her fellow assassins сёстры, her torturers тётки. The first time her world fell apart was when she left them.

Everyone else’s world fell apart three weeks ago, and through it all Natasha keeps being startled by a deep, shameful joy: Bruce home again. Thor joining the battle. Even now, sparking with anger and grief, Tony, alive, in front of her eyes.

Natasha’s lost everything before. She thinks she can start over if she has her family with her.

* * *

Only alive isn’t enough. They all scatter to separate corners, scuttle into the dark places that opened up when Thanos shook out the world, to find their own families or to mourn them.

“Stay,” Natasha says, with no idea who’ll agree. She starts over anyway, lives and fights alongside old friends and strangers, calls them Avengers. 

_The people who raised you weren’t your family,_ Clint told her once, when she was young and quiet and scared and feigning fearlessness. _They were your kidnappers._

Someone needs to tell Nebula that. But Clint’s not here, and the words stick in Natasha’s throat.

* * *

Any time they’re not fighting enemies they scheme and spar at the compound. Natasha’s surprised to be getting as much out of it as she gives, reaching new heights of precision with Okoye, new depths of deviousness with Rocket.

There’s an audacity in the new ones that she’s never seen, and Natasha’s seen a lot. With Carol it makes sense –– she basically never loses –– but with Nebula it’s reckless, unsettling. “Back off,” Natasha councils from the sidelines, “get back to safety, you can’t win this one.” 

“It’s okay,” Nebula says, “I never win.” She picks herself up and punches back.

* * *

“What the _hell_, Nebula!” for a second Rhodey’s anger is the biggest shock, and then the pain overtakes everything. Natasha wants to roll away but she’s _pinned down_ by the spear shoved through her calf and into the floor. 

She passes out screaming, wakes up wrapped in bandages and painkillers.

“I’m sorry,” Nebula says when they let her in. 

“You can’t get carried away.” The drugs help Natasha talk like a coach. 

“I didn’t...” Nebula shakes her head. “That’s how I got better, before. My father – But they explained, it’s different here. I’m on the team. I’m learning. I’ll learn.”

* * *

They keep learning, and get better at fighting, even when they’re not sure what it’s for. 

Natasha’s still limping when they parachute into Paris. Rhodey and Nebula have helped her figure out how to fight like that, but she can’t move fast enough when the riot police start firing. There’s an impact and a fall, a flash of blue and more pain as Nebula collapses on top of her. 

Natasha presses one hand against on the wound in Nebula’s side while Nebula holds the one in Natasha’s shoulder. They grit their teeth and bleed. It’s the longest they’ve ever touched.

* * *

She heals quickly, that’s obvious, but there’s no less pain for Nebula than for anyone else. Just a determination not to let it hold her back. It’s so familiar Natasha could puke.

“Don’t go,” she says quietly, and Steve squints at her as the others suit up. This, like everything, is an emergency. 

“I’m ready,” Nebula insists.

“But I’m not.” Two weeks out, it’s possible Natasha’s exaggerating her injury, just as Nebula’s ignoring hers. “I need you to stay with me.”

“I am no nursemaid. I want to fight.”

“Please,” says Natasha, and when that’s not enough, “you owe me.”

* * *

Bullied into rest, Nebula asks to play paper football.

“You are more skilled than Stark,” she pronounces after three games. “But I am out of practice.”

“So am I,” says Natasha. Suddenly missing Tony fiercely, she says, “Thank you, for keeping him alive.”

Nebula stares, says nothing.

“We don’t spend much time together these days. But he’s... important to me. So are you. I’m glad you both made it back. Even though it wasn’t... what you expected.”

Nebula reaches a hand across the table, and Natasha eventually realizes she means to shake. She kisses it instead. Nebula’s hard gaze softens.

* * *

Her organic skin is thick and cool. The purple patches are tougher, saltier. Natasha catalogs the tastes of four alien metals. She tongues the seams. 

She discovers Nebula can shut down the sensation in her left arm completely. She can also turn it up, so a huff of breath over her wrist sends convulsions down to her toes.

“I did not _expect_” Nebula growls, “_any_ of this. I did not choose this planet, this future.”

“I know.” Natasha drags her fingernails down the smooth blue skin of Nebula’s back.

“Yes,” Nebula breathes, Nebula moans. “Yes, this is what I want.”

* * *

Laura Barton chose to have three kids. Maria Hill chose a hysterectomy at twenty-six. Natasha remembers envying them both. 

Natasha and Nebula never had a say about what happened to their bodies. But here they are, still living with what’s been done to them. Still living.

“Only alive isn’t enough,” Natasha says out loud.

“What?” 

“I want to make this mine.” She touches the scars Nebula made in her leg. The pain is manageable now. She squeezes.

Nebula stops her from digging in with her nails. “You’re beautiful,” she says. “If you want to make it yours, make it beautiful.”

* * *

Carol arrives with supplies and a smirk, says, “I can’t believe you’ve never done this before.”

“I used to be a spy.”

Carol nods. “We all know who we are now.”

Nebula’s flesh fingers curl around Natasha’s ankle and Carol starts in on the blue line that’ll circle her calf, interwoven with purple, precise and pretty as circuitry. Nebula vibrates as the needles pierce Natasha’s skin. Natasha smiles into the pain and wraps a hand around Nebula’s shoulder, touches the spot where her black spider will go.

Natasha’s lost people before. She’s survived. She doesn’t think she’ll get lost again.


End file.
